Update #3/ Week of March 15, 2010

Good Morning Everyone and Happy St. Patty’s Day! Stock indices tack on another gain so far in an attempt to close out it’s 7th straight day of positive closes.

The Dow, at this moment, sits at 10,728 – finally cresting its high for 2010 and hitting levels not seen since Sept of 2008. It’s been a while since we’ve been here on equity indices, but we are notching these small daily gains pretty consistently, so the likelihood of a continued rise is good. Many analysts were looking for a correction right after the 1st of the year, and we did get one, it just wasn’t as big as many predicted. However, the stock markets have been pretty much flat for about 2 months, up until a couple weeks ago when we started posting these daily gains. Thus, a correction at this point does not seem likely -- look for equities to keep rising.

What does this do to credit markets and rates? Well, we were pleasantly surprised to see rates improve yesterday. Credit markets have pocketed their gains from yesterday afternoon and this morning our rate sheet reflects any where from an (.125) to (.250) improvement from yesterday’s rebates. We’ll take it.

Traders got some momentum this morning from Asian markets who closed very strong early this morning. Maybe our Fed decision helped in some way spark this rally. PPI (Wholesale inflation) for February dropped .6% m-o-m, far deeper than analysts’ .2% expectation. This is good news after January’s pop of a 1.4% increase (month over month) that put a scare into economists looking for continued low inflation. Corporate news is light today as is trading volume once again. Trading volume has been very low for the past several trading sessions, and the volatility index has dropped another 5.3% -- it’s lowest mark since May of 2008. Calm seems to be ruling the markets lately. I guess that’s good, but it’s no fun.

I will be in the office all day today, however, I do have an appointment mid afternoon and will be unavailable for a couple hours. Otherwise, if I can help you with a lock, a pricing scenario or a program question, please call me here or better yet email me if I can help you. Have a terrific Humpday!